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Big Muddy Mysteries — Book One

Strange Inheritance at River’s Edge

by Artemis Taylor

“Becky Whitmore wasn’t planning to stay.”

4.5 stars from readers
Literary Titan Gold Book Award seal Winner Literary Titan Gold Book Award
International Firebird Book Award Winner Indie Gold Awards Silver Prize, Crime Fiction
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Cover of Strange Inheritance at River's Edge by Artemis Taylor: an illustrated three-story brick storefront with a striped awning, warm lit windows, a cat stretched on a bench and a dog peeking from the bushes.
The Story

Becky Whitmore wasn’t planning to stay.

She came home to Hannibal, Missouri for one reason: to settle an inheritance she never expected from an aunt she barely knew.

She didn’t expect the River’s Edge Magic Emporium to feel like it had been waiting for her. She didn’t expect the enormous black lab and the imperious golden cat who had apparently been running the place on their own. And she definitely didn’t expect the building itself to have opinions.

But Iris White didn’t just leave Becky a building. She left her a secret thirty years in the making, a town full of people with long memories, and a mystery that someone from Chicago is very interested in keeping buried.

Becky is a decorated veteran, a former private security contractor, and a woman who has spent years being useful to everyone except herself. Hannibal is the last place she thought she’d land.

It might be the first place she’s ever belonged.

Praise for Strange Inheritance

“A tender, haunted mystery about coming home to a place that has been waiting, not to save you, but to ask you to stay.”

Literary Titan

“Strange Inheritance at River’s Edge is for people who know that the things we didn’t ask to inherit are sometimes the things that finally bring us home.”

Readers’ Favorite

Coming December 2026

Butter Cow Blues

Book Two of the Big Muddy Mysteries sends Becky into an antique shop full of books the Emporium insists must be acquired—and a small-town committee vote that turns stranger than anyone expected.

Join the list above to hear the moment it’s out →
About the Author

Artemis Taylor

Artemis Taylor is an award-winning author of cozy paranormal mysteries, including the Big Muddy Mysteries series. Strange Inheritance at River’s Edge is her first novel set in Hannibal, Missouri—a town she fell in love with somewhere around chapter three. She is currently at work on Book Two.

Award-winning author · International Firebird Book Award